Man-Made Fertilizer Destroys the Soil - Creation Methods Will Build It Up Again. Parallels to the Means of Grace versus Circus Clown Ministries?

Gabe and Paul Brown have a Facebook page
and a website - Brown's Ranch.

Gabe Brown and his son Paul:

Our ranch is located just east of Bismarck, ND.  Shelly and I purchased the ranch from Shelly’s parents in 1991 and have grown the operation to 5000 acres of owned and leased land.  Son, Paul, returned to the ranch after graduation from North Dakota State University and became a partner in the operation.  Daughter, Kelly, lives and works in Fargo, ND and returns home to help whenever possible.

We believe in and practice Holistic Management, a part of which is farming and ranching in nature’s image. We strive to solve problems in a natural and sustainable way.  Improving soil health is a priority and no-till farming has been practiced since 1993.  A diverse cropping strategy, which includes cover and companion crops are used.  We have now elimnated the use of synthetic fertilizers, fungicides, and pesticides. We use minimal herbicide and are striving to eliminate it.  We do not use GMOs or glyphosate.  Our ever evolving grazing strategy allows most of our pastures a recovery period of over 360 days.  These strategies have allowed the health of the soil, the mineral and water cycles to greatly improve.  In other words, the natural resources have benefited.  This results in increased production, profit and a higher quality of life for us.  We are moving towards sustainability for not only ours but future generations as well.

These Borage flowers are used in salads.
Also called Bee Bread, this plant increases the total number
of beneficial insects in the area.

Yesterday I talked with someone about fertilizer versus soil amendments. Rosarians seldom - if ever - use man-made chemical fertilizers, because these manufactured powders hurt the soil and pollute the water table. 

Many soil amendments can be bought at gardening centers:

• Mushroom compost
• Peat Humus
• Composted Manures
• Peat Moss
• Top Soil (not quite my version, but OK to use)
• Wood mulches (but avoid the dyed ones)

These products will become part of the soil over time and enhance the growth of soil creatures. 

 Earthworms sweeten, tunnel, mix,
and add nutrition to the soil.
Agricultural chemicals repel and kill them.

Natural mulches, placed around plants, include:

1. Newspapers and cardboard
2. Grasses (though prone to re-establish their reign over soil)
3. Leaves
4. Pine needles
5. Pulled, broadleaf weeds 
6. Compost from the home-made compost pile 

I consider mulching to be composting on the spot, since compost is a mixture of soil, organic material, and soil creatures that come up from the soil to reduce the pile to the finest amendment of all - rich, earthwormy, compost. If you need a hobby and strenuous exercise, I highly recommend composting. I decided to compost on the spot, simply by covering lawn with cardboard and shredded wood mulch (or pine needles).

This is where one can compare God's Creation methods and man's destructive whims. The Creation soil amendments do not need to be taken to a lab and measured. They become part of the soil and improve fertility, increasing production by providing an ideal environment for the soil creatures.

Man's destructive whims:

1. Kill most of insects and the spiders, when less than 1% of insects are pests. Beneficial insects do a better job of handling the pests.
2. Reduce the organic portion of soil, which is essential for its health.
3. Destroy soil through soil and wind erosion.
4. Pollute the water table with pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers.
5. Sicken animals with various forms of toxins and rob them of the healthy nutrition of soil free of toxins.

Yale's main campus, featuring Harkness Tower,
Yale Law and Sterling Library in the background.

From Yale - 

Why It’s Time to Stop Punishing Our Soils with Fertilizers

Researcher Rick Haney travels the U.S. preaching the benefits of healthy soils. In a Yale Environment 360 interview, he talks about the folly of pursuing ever-greater crop yields using fertilizers and other chemicals and how farmland can by restored through natural methods.

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Results of toxin-free gardening -

 Bride's Dream is the largest rose

California Dreamin'

Calladiums in the shady mulch

Crepe Myrtle sheltering a family of Cardinals

Orange Easy-Does-It roses

Fragrant red Veteran's Honor roses,
contrasted with Pope John Paul II white roses.

Regenerative Farming and Regenerative Yale Divinity. Insights for the Gardener

Tropicana is blooming again.

While grading, I listened to various YouTubes on regenerative farming. My favorite speaker is Gabe Brown, but there are many other experts who have videos as well.

The new Yale Divinity dorm could feature
the compost drum. Lutheran School of Chicago dedicated this compost drum about 6 years ago. 

Yale Divinity School sent me a glorious color magazine that features the regenerative dormitory they want to build. I can fund it and name it for $10 million. Although Yale Divinity chokes at talking about Creation, they are really dealing with the concept of God's magnificent handiwork, His engineering, and His management of all that He fashioned through the Word. He invented re-cycling, no?

Another buzzword is sustainability, although that includes quite a bit of Left-wing political activism. Increasing carbon for the soil is linked with absorbing greenhouse gasses (Carbon Dioxide), global warming, fake statistics, and the rants of Al Gore and Company.

New Insights about Creation Gardening
I have been reading about organic gardening since Dow Library days in Midland, in the 1980s. I read many books from Rodale Press and bought quite a few as well.

I am going to condense some new insights that I learned from Gabe Brown and others.

Armor for the Soil
God covers the soil - always, but man often leaves it bare. Although I was aware of all the benefits of mulch, these people argue - through research - that cover crops prevent drought by increasing the ability of the soil to absorb rain and snow.

Cover crops, if diverse, also host a wide variety of beneficial bugs. "Why use pesticide when fewer than 1% of the bugs are pests?"

Cover crops mine nitrogen from the soil. "Above one acre of farmland are 35,000 tons of nitrogen. Why buy nitrogen when God provides it for free. Plant legumes - peas, beans, vetch."

Cover Crops Suppress Weeds, Add Energy
I have been considering using more tiny plants to occupy territory in the rose gardens. One reason is that mulch attracts wind blown seeds and bird-donated seeds. Weeds are easily pulled or suppressed, except a couple that vex me - English ivy and Bermuda grass.

Buckwheat, White Clover, and Wild Strawberries are low growing, not obtrusive. Studies show that much of the soil improvement comes from the activity of roots. Some can also exclude weeds entirely - as Buckwheat has proven, while adding food and shelter for beneficial bugs.
Dutch White Clover has excluded almost all the grass in the backyard, simply by surviving the extensive rain we have had.

Carbon for the Soil
The chemical gardening books pooh-poohed manure. To wit - "Manure and tree leaves are just carbon, etc. No real NPK." These farmers realize that carbon feeds the fungal jungle, and these fungi grow from the carbon, feeding and watering the roots.

Some videos argue that rich soil absorbs carbon from the atmosphere. I find that whole line of "greenhouse gasses" bizarre and fraudulent. I have no idea what chemistry they are talking about with CO2 being absorbed.

The fact is, when I was reading everything possible about soil in the 1980s, fungus was mentioned largely as a problem - not as the most basic activity of soil.

A farmer with thousands of acres has to figure out the cost and benefits of his actions. Gabe Brown freely confesses that four straight disasters in farming forced him to learn about the soil and discover the value of natural methods, building the soil that builds the farm.

We Saw an M.D. Who Began Talking about Creation Through the Word. I Offered To Give Him a Creation Gardening Book

 Creation Gardening is an easy book to give away.
The author's price (write to me) is only $5 plus shipping.

Mrs. Ichabod had a doctor's visit, and we began talking with him about various things at the end. He mentioned going to seminary and then talked about God's Creation through the Word. I said, "I teach that." He asked, "You do and in...?" I finished, "Yes, six days - through the Word."

He was a bit startled about the idea of a Creation Garden, which made him smile. The next visit will mean roses and a book or two. I enjoy telling people that the flawless roses were grown without sprays and chemical fertilizer, which hails back to "If you do not believe the Word, at least believe because of the signs (miracles)" in John.

Diabetic Shock
Our son sees the same diabetic specialist that Mrs. Ichabod visits. She just received her copy of Creation Gardening before she saw him. LI said, "She was still disturbed by your roses when I saw her." By the way, she really adores roses, which we give her, so this news was intriguing.

Gabe Brown, Regenerative Farmer
Someone directed me to a video, which I will place at the bottom of this post. The initial video led me to a series created by Gabe Brown, regenerative farmer from North Dakota.

Those who are interested in this might want to investigate the theories of the soil-food-web, another general term for these practice.

Agricultural videos bring out the inner farmer in me, since both my grandfathers owned farms until the Great Depression.

Four Disastrous Years Taught Brown
My brief description - Gabe Brown began on a huge farm which he was buying from his in-laws. However, they had four years in a row which were a total wipe-out of the crops, due to natural disasters like drought and hail. They had no cash. He planted each year but had nothing to harvest, so the soil noticeably improved because the soil absorbed the destroyed crops.

Farmer Brown learned that he needed to focus on the health of the soil to have good crops and preserve his greatest asset - the land.

Chemical and plowing practices (tillage on the tape) have the following bad effects:

1. Plowing creates a hardpan that the roots cannot break through. Bigger, deeper plows push the hardpan layer down but do not solve the problem.
2. Plowing also reduces the carbon in the soil, which diminishes what the soil can do.
3. Chemical fertilizers do not reduce these problems, but make them worse.
4. Rainwater, which is often sparse, runs off and causes soil erosion, when the soil surface is hard and non-porous.

Did an earthworm take this photo of Gabe Brown
and his son Paul?

Brown's main emphasis is upon diverse cover crops, which keep most weeds down, soften the soil, and attract beneficial insects that devour the pests. Animal life of all types also eat weed seeds at a prodigious rate.

I had similar problems. I began gardening in shock - I could afford the chemicals. I had the almost-infinite resources of the Grace Dow library in Midland, so I read every gardening book (adult and juvenile sections) I could find. The juvenile books were often the best ones.

I softened clay by placing wheelbarrows of finished compost on top of it. The soil creatures did the plowing, mixing, and tunneling. Once the soil had digested the organic matter I used, the gardens were always productive. I did not want to spray what we ate, and I had no need for chemical enhancements.

I also created fast compost by putting sod clumps together in a hole I dug for a parsley garden. The soil became jelly-like from all the humus digested in it.

Scarlet Bee Balm is rampant,
but this purple Monarda is clumping.

Brown learned from an expert that he needed more than one plant in his cover-crops - he needed a mix of six. This diversity is what I am practicing in the gardens, because I reasoned, "The plants with another agenda can grow next to and among the roses, providing a good rest and feeding station for the beneficial insects." -

• Dandelions - a dandy and attractive herb.
• Horse, Mountain, and Cat Mints - well-behaved and clumping.
• Wild Strawberries, low-growing and planted by the birds.
• Clover.
• Buckwheat and other plants can be bee-friendly and squeeze out weeds, without becoming a bother.

I pull out future nut and maple trees, but the list above are never-pulls. Big obnoxious weeds can be dug out in some cases and given cardboard-mulch shade in others.

Brown's overall emphasis in his videos -

1. The soil must be built up, not abused until dead.
2. Repeated plowing is bad for every aspect of the soil. Organic growing is no good if someone plows that soil all the time. He does not plow at all now.
3. God mulches (did Brown steal that from me, or did we both steal it from Creation?) He calls cover crops/mulches "the armor of the soil."
4. Soil is an ocean of life, below ground with too many creatures to name, above ground, with hundreds of beneficial creatures that live from it and benefit us.
5. Diversity of plant and animal life is natural, based on Creation, and this mix leverages all the outcomes of natural far beyond what we can imagine until we see it. Almost Eden and I see hawks resting and searching on our property - because we have so many creatures living from it.

All the children and Do-It-Yourself fanatics are learning that YouTube covers every topic. I have started to create videos for the classroom. Now I am going to create some for gardening. That will have to wait a bit until I get some other items finished.